The wave of momentum Barack Obama road out of Iowa on shows no signs of stopping. Even with a less-than-impressive performance in Saturday’s ABC-Facebook sponsored debate, Obama continues to excite and thrill audiences alike with his call for change and refusal to get mixed up in political wrangling. This rising swell of popularity will push Obama to a double-digit victory over Clinton that could swell to as much as fifteen points in New Hampshire's "first in the nation" primary.
While it is always foolish to count a Clinton out, especially in New Hampshire the place Bill was labeled “the comeback kid,” Obama’s momentum seems too strong for Hillary and will likely leave her like her husband Bill was in 1992, in second place.
With a defeat, Clinton will be forced to seriously reassess her fledgling campaign and begin to scrap together a plan to remain viable. She will likely look past South Carolina where the overwhelming number of black voters combined with Obama’s ever-growing serge of popularity will make him the clear front-runner there. Clinton’s best and perhaps last hope may lie in the one-two-combination of Florida’s January 29 primary followed by the all-important Super Tuesday primaries of February 5.
John Edwards continues to hang around like that one last person refusing to leave your holiday party. Clearly Edwards was invited by his 2004 performance and his early fundraising but his welcome and more so his chances of victory grow less and less by the minute. Edwards’s renewed energy has been apparent in the minutes immediately following Iowa straight on through his weekend appearances in New Hampshire; however, after finishing seven points off the lead in Iowa look for that margin to at least double in New Hampshire.
On the Republican side look for Arizona Senator John McCain to claim his first victory of 2008 by a margin of somewhere in the range of five to ten points. McCain’s likely victory will position himself and Huckabee as the two front-runners in the national race and further serve to push Mitt Romney farther down the political ladder. The margin of McCain’s victory and whether Huckabee can crack the top three in New Hampshire should tell us a lot as the campaign shifts its focus south towards South Carolina.
Mitt Romney, barring a last minute catastrophe, should claim the silver medal in the Granite state. A second place finish for Romney in New Hampshire does not do much to reenergize Romney’s sinking campaign but if he is to let Huckabee slip ahead of him in New Hampshire Romney may never find his name ahead of Huckabee’s for the duration of the race.
Governor Mike Huckabee can’t really put too much faith in a victory in New Hampshire; however, the position he finishes in and the margin of victory between him and those ahead of him may give him some added muscle heading to South Carolina. Second place should be Huckabee’s goal and if he’s left with the silver medal Huckabee should consider himself a winner.
In terms of other GOP hopefuls, Mayor Rudy Giuliani would consider it a success for him to finish in the top four in New Hampshire. Giuliani’s front-runner status has been stripped from him and he’s putting all of his stock in a Nixon-like “secret plan” to pile up victories in late January and early February.
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson much like his southern, ex-senator, Democratic, counter-part, John Edwards remains in the race hoping for something or someone to break allowing him once again to climb a top the polls. A third place finish in Iowa put a pulse back in Thomson’s campaign; however, it still is in need of constant monitoring to see when it might give its last breath. A victory for Thompson would find himself on the medal stand in New Hampshire claiming one of the top three spots. If Thompson was to finish fifth or worse he may need to ready once again his withdrawal speech and endorsement of John McCain.
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